music

Music

Brennan Sweet

Instructor, Violin

Born in New York City, Brennan Sweet began violin studies at two years of age in Edmonton, Alberta. In 1977 he studied violin at the Franz Liszt Academy of Music in Budapest, Hungary. Sweet earned a bachelor of music degree from Indiana University, and served for three years as teaching assistant to Distinguished Professor Emeritus Josef Gingold before joining the faculty for another two years as a lecturer. Concertmaster of several orchestras during his time in Indiana, including the Evansville Philharmonic and Owensboro Symphony Orchestras, Sweet was also a founding member of the Evansville String Quartet. He performed two seasons as assistant concertmaster of the Colorado Music Festival in Boulder under Maestro Giora Bernstein, and in 1994 he won the position of associate concertmaster with the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Subsequently, he led the orchestra for three seasons as acting concertmaster under Maestro ZdenekMacal. Sweet was a founding member of the Mostly Mozart at Monteux Festival in Hancock, Maine, and has served as coach and performer at the Raphael Trio Chamber Music workshop in New Hampshire and ASTANJ’s Chamber Music Institute. After holding the position of concert artist faculty member at Kean University for seven years, Sweet began teaching at the Mason Gross Extension Division at Rutgers University in 2013. In 2015 he was invited to join the collegiate faculty at the Mason Gross School.